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This is an old trick. The game was simply called ‘Spoons’. We used to play it on ‘sprogs’ in the Royal Navy at least as early as the 1970s. The ruse was to get the sprog to challenge the reigning spoons champion (just another guy in the crew room).The sprog would have a standard tablespoon held between his teeth and his opponent would feign pain when he hit them (feebly) on the top of the head and the spectators would react with winces and draw breath between their teeth – all part of the act to reduce suspicion when the sprog was hit from behind with a steel ladle.

I have mentioned this to people many times who could not believe that anybody would fall for it – but there was no YouTube or camera phones 30+ years ago!